HEAVY ROTATION

For reasons too complicated and boring to go into here, I am going on a self-imposed break. Look for me in a month or so, newly tanned and with tons of gossip from my summer vacation. Or maybe sooner...we'll see.

But first--the little man's birthday party went off without a hitch, as long as you don't call the guest of honor passing out in the middle of the festivities a hitch. He looked smashing in his han bok and promises to have a great future. I must admit there was a lump in my throat seeing him all decked out at one year old, and thinking back to the day we first met him, and his foster mother presented us with his han bok. To see the two distinct days meet in real time, past and present...knowing how far we've come but also knowing that it's only the beginning.

Oh boy. He really knows how to mix things up a bit, that H. Six days shy of turning one, he's decided to go ahead and drop that second nap, which quite frankly, has remained elusive the last month or so anyway. He's also decided that he likes to get up earlier, and then nap later, because hey--he's almost one. You can't fence him in. He has two molars coming in, so he's been waking in presumed agony in the middle of the night, and the Mr. and I are just getting more and more tired and cranky. But at least we don't have four-pronged chiclets drumming their way through our gums.

We are also at that point in babyhood with H. where even though he's still technically a baby, he's supposed to know certain things. Like, it's not okay to bite Mommy. Or pinch her. Or that when you ask, "How big is Baby H.?" he's supposed to raise his arms up as if to say SO BIG...and NOT lay his head down and shut his eyes. Or when you ask, "What does the sheep say?" one or both of you is supposed to say "Baaaaaaa-aaa--aaa." Instead one or both of you ends up crying.

When he turns 1, we'll stop the formula and put him on breast milk. Just kidding. He'll be switching to whole milk and presumably have less bottles. And eventually but also presumably stop the bottles and switch to a cup. But then I'll lose moments like the one that happened today, where the not-napping boy-baby gulped down a whole bottle, pushed it away from his mouth and began to snore. He fell asleep there on my chest, just as he did when he was 6 months old. I'm going to miss that. I mean, it's just not the same with a sippy cup.

But what we lose in the passage from babydom, I guess we gain in their capacity to understand as a toddler. After he pinched me for the umpteenth time today, and I said in my best SuperNanny voice, "Do not do that. That hurts Mommy and you may not do that anymore. It's not asseptible!" he did a miraculous thing. He wrapped his arms tightly around my neck and put his head down on my shoulder as if to say, "I'm sorry." He's in a kind of limbo. Old enough to understand, but still too young to resist the impulse. And I would be lying if I said that I didn't secretly wish that he'd pinch me again if only to get the make-up hug afterwards.

And then there's this--probably the best example of the in-between we're straddling. The place where he knows something more is expected of him and yet he's not quite sure how to do it. Every morning we say goodbye to Mr. Fits when he leaves for work. I hold H. and give his daddy a kiss. We say See you later Daddy. Daddy asks for a kiss from H. and never gets one. But this morning, I was holding H. and kissed Mr. Fits goodbye. H. decided he wanted a piece of that. So when Daddy asked for his kiss, H. lunged at him with an open mouth. Then I asked for a kiss. Same thing. Bright red, slippery open mouth coming at me. And we stood there like that, laughing at how he kissed but also so overjoyed that he knew how to return our love in a way we could see. I suppose that no matter how old he gets or how many new things he learns, that's all we'll ever really want from him.

Took H. for his first haircut last week and rid my poor boy of his mullet. Mr. Fits wanted to go even shorter than what we ended up with, but I couldn't bear to part with all that sweet, sweet baby hair. So we compromised.

And now, he looks like a big boy. I keep saying to anyone who will listen that he got a big boy haircut, but I really don't think anyone cares. Yep, I'm a mom alright.

The other day he and I went to have a little chat with the manager at the restaurant where we are doing his birthday party. In Korea, the first birthday is a pretty big deal. We'll be having the traditional Tol ceremony, whereby our boy chooses his fate in life. Let's hope he doesn't choose veterinarian because apparently certain animal noises make him cry. H. will wear a han bok given to him by his foster mother. When I 'm not feeling so lazy, I'll take a picture of it and post it. I think it's going to look ridiculously large on him, but he'll wear it for at least the deciding his fate part of things. I've ordered an American cake and obscene amounts of Korean rice cakes which are also a traditional part of the Tol. I can only hope our guests wear clothes with deep pockets.

That we have an almost one year old is nothing short of miraculous to me. You go through the adoption process half-believing that someone is actually going to entrust to you a child, and then once that person actually comes to you--a living, breathing, cooing, blinking baby--you can't believe your good luck. Everything I imagined about being a parent to this boy during the wait has been surpassed tenfold. When I am exhausted, when I have changed 10 diapers, when I have read Elmo Pops In! for the 200th time that day, when my arms can no longer hold the wriggling baby who cannot stay still, when I can't seem to get the food into the mouth and make it stay there, when I can't figure out what's upsetting him or making him cry, when he doesn't nap, when he wakes early craving attention, and even when it all seems so hard, it is never lost on me how lucky I am.

Okay, maybe when he wakes early. No one should get up earlier than the birds. No one.